Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Monday, December ninth. Syria is in full blown civil
Speaker 1: war as rebel forces who stunned the dictator Bashah al
Speaker 1: Assad by taking Aleppo last week, move into the capital Damascus,
Speaker 1: Asad has reportedly fled the country. It changes everything in
Speaker 1: the Middle East, and at the Australian dot com dot
Speaker 1: a U we have live reporting and analysis of this
Speaker 1: fast moving story. The fire bombing of a Melbourne synagogue
Speaker 1: was terrorism. That's what Anthony Albanezi says is his personal view,
Speaker 1: as a manhunt continues for the arsonists and law enforcement
Speaker 1: leaders gather this week to consider declaring the attack a
Speaker 1: terror event. It comes after Israeli PM Benjamin Eettana, who
Speaker 1: condemned the Albanese government's handling of events since October seven,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. Nettania who said anti Israel sentiment is
Speaker 1: the same as antisemitism. Today, our correspondent Joanni Bisham joins
Speaker 1: me to explore one of the thorniest issues of our age,
Speaker 1: how we think and talk about the Middle East. Before
Speaker 1: we start. Today's episode contains some explicit language. There's outrage
Speaker 1: from around the world tonight after an arson attack on
Speaker 1: a synagogue in Melbourne's Jewish heartland of Rippon Lee. This
Speaker 1: in Melbourne and this in Sydney.
Speaker 2: Jewish Australians were barricaded inside Sydney's Great Synagogue last night
Speaker 2: after a noisy and aggressive pro Palestinian group decided to
Speaker 2: protest on the street right outside.
Speaker 1: After condemnation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjaminettanna who and three
Speaker 1: days of pressure led by Josh Fridenberg and Peter Dutton.
Speaker 1: On Sunday, Anthony Alberanzi defended his record on standing up
Speaker 1: to antisemitism.
Speaker 3: If you want my personal view, quite clearly, terrorism is
Speaker 3: something that is aimed at creating fear in the community,
Speaker 3: and the atrocities that occurred at the synagogue in Melbourne
Speaker 3: clearly were designed to create fear in the community and therefore,
Speaker 3: from my personal perspective, certainly fulfill that definition of terrorism.
Speaker 1: Joanni Bishan is a senior journalist with The Australian. Johnnie,
Speaker 1: what's your interpretation of Anthony Alberanese's remarks? There is this
Speaker 1: a new stance for Albanesi or is this business as
Speaker 1: usual for him?
Speaker 4: It's business as usual in the sense that it takes
Speaker 4: some time with Albo to.
Speaker 5: Take a bold stance and call something what it is.
Speaker 4: So Anthony Alberanesi calling the fire bombing attack on the
Speaker 4: ADUs Israel Synagogue as a terrorist act or what he
Speaker 4: sees is personally being a terrorist act, well he's doing
Speaker 4: what the Jewish community in Australia did in about three seconds.
Speaker 5: We all saw what happened, we knew what it was.
Speaker 4: The fact it took him two days to pronounce it
Speaker 4: as a terrorist act, well that's in keeping. That's bau
Speaker 4: for Albow. But he is right in one sense, which
Speaker 4: is that the technical definition of a terrorist act is
Speaker 4: something that needs to be decided by the law enforcement agencies.
Speaker 5: They're going to be.
Speaker 4: Meeting on Monday, and in the past it's taken many
Speaker 4: months for these vary agencies to figure out whether, for example,
Speaker 4: the Link Cafe siege was a terrorist attack or not.
Speaker 4: Everyone who watched that new almost on site that they
Speaker 4: were watching hostages being held up in a cafe with
Speaker 4: a shotgun while they were holding a Shaharta flag, and
Speaker 4: they knew what it was.
Speaker 5: They were calling it a terroristack.
Speaker 4: But for many months it was described as an instance
Speaker 4: of a mentally ill manned.
Speaker 5: So these things can take time.
Speaker 1: There's an author called Alex Rifchin who's also co chief
Speaker 1: executive of an advocacy group called the Council of Australian Jury.
Speaker 1: He's written a book about antisemitism called The Seven Deadly Myths.
Speaker 1: In it, he says antisemitism is as diverse as Jewishness.
Speaker 1: You can be a Jew if you are very religious,
Speaker 1: or even if you have no religious faith at all,
Speaker 1: and if you're born into a Jewish family, or if
Speaker 1: you're a convert to the religion. Alex Rifchin writes that
Speaker 1: antisemitism is similar. You can be an anti Semite if
Speaker 1: you despise the Jewish faith on religious grounds, but you
Speaker 1: don't hate the ethnic group of Jews, or like the Nazis,
Speaker 1: you can hate the Jews as an ethnic group without
Speaker 1: really focusing on their religious practices. And then he says
Speaker 1: this one can adorn the state of Israel with all
Speaker 1: manner of antisemitic conspiracy theory, yet hold Judaism and Jewish
Speaker 1: culture in high regard, as has become common in some
Speaker 1: sectors of the far left.
Speaker 5: Yanni.
Speaker 1: This is the idea I'm keen to dig through with
Speaker 1: you today, and it's big and complex. On Saturday, Israel's
Speaker 1: Prime Minister Benjamin Netna who took to social media to
Speaker 1: declare anti Israel sentiment is anti Semitism, and he was
Speaker 1: talking particularly about Australia. So let's start with that idea.
Speaker 1: Would you agree with NTNYA, who is anti Israel sentiment
Speaker 1: the same thing as antisemitism.
Speaker 4: Well, the first thing I would start off by saying
Speaker 4: is that there's a tendency even among Jews to interpret
Speaker 4: Netanya who's phrasing here as any criticism of the government
Speaker 4: of Israel or its policies is akin to anti Semitism.
Speaker 4: And that's not what I think Netanyahu meant at all.
Speaker 4: I think what he's talking about here is the anti
Speaker 4: Israel movement that broadly speaking, denies the right of Jews
Speaker 4: to live in their ancestral homeland. The anti Israel movement
Speaker 4: at its worst is not one that seeks too state solution.
Speaker 4: It's one that actually doesn't seek Israel to exist at all.
Speaker 4: But it's also and I guess this is the part
Speaker 4: that aligns a little more closely with the Albanesi government.
Speaker 4: It's a mindset that tends to apportion all of the
Speaker 4: blame for all of the situation in the Middle East
Speaker 4: on Israel itself, and that's partly why Netanyahu responded so
Speaker 4: forcefully on Friday night with that tweet. So he's responding
Speaker 4: to Australia's fresh positioning at the UN and a number
Speaker 4: of hostile steps taken by the Albanese government to distance
Speaker 4: itself from Israel over the past year, when Israel, with
Speaker 4: whom Australia is supposed to be a very warm ally,
Speaker 4: was the one that was attacked in the first place
Speaker 4: on October seven.
Speaker 1: Over the past year and a bit since October seven,
Speaker 1: you've been back and forth to Israel, covering the conflict
Speaker 1: as it's unfolded, and covering the development of sentiment within
Speaker 1: Israel itself. I've been struck in your reporting that Israel
Speaker 1: is itself a very diverse place. There have always been
Speaker 1: Arab members of the parliament, for example, there our villages
Speaker 1: in Israel, and there are plenty of Israelis who strongly
Speaker 1: disagree with Netnya, who on vs On all sorts of things.
Speaker 1: So how do we square that the idea of Israelis
Speaker 1: who don't like Nettnya who and don't like the conduct
Speaker 1: of the war. With the idea that anti Israel sentiment
Speaker 1: is anti Semitic by definition.
Speaker 5: They really are two different things.
Speaker 4: So again there's ordinary political dissent and disagreement, and this
Speaker 4: is abundant in Israel, as anyone who has been there
Speaker 4: will to test, and since the war began last year,
Speaker 4: there's been extraordinary disagreement over how the government, for example,
Speaker 4: should be negotiating the release of the hostages. And separate
Speaker 4: to that, there's ample criticism of Netna who himself. That's
Speaker 4: not anti semitism. No one would suggest that that's anti semitism.
Speaker 4: But protesters standing outside Central Synagogue in Sydney, holding Jews
Speaker 4: here accountable for the actions of the Israeli government and
Speaker 4: forcing them to be locked inside the synagogue for their safety,
Speaker 4: that's anti Semitic. Protesting in the streets calling for an
Speaker 4: anti five or of violent uprising against Jews, that's anti Semitic.
Speaker 4: When the police tell Jews they shouldn't venture into parts
Speaker 4: of the city because their safety cannot be assured, as
Speaker 4: they were told on October nine last year, there's a
Speaker 4: word for that too. So people use the cover of
Speaker 4: anti Israel critique to mask an anti Semitism. They're never
Speaker 4: critiquing the government's domestic policies or its foreign policies. They're
Speaker 4: critiquing Israel's right to exist and boycotting Jewish products and
Speaker 4: blaming Jews in Sydney and Melbourne for events unfolding a
Speaker 4: world away. And that's what I think Bibie was talking about.
Speaker 1: Here in Australia. Since October seven, twenty twenty three, we've
Speaker 1: seen a few different types of reaction. First, of course,
Speaker 1: was the Opera House protest on October nine, where protesters
Speaker 1: were chanting something that was either fuck the Jews or.
Speaker 5: Where's the Jews?
Speaker 1: That has been widely interpreted, particularly in the community, as
Speaker 1: anti Semitic as well as anti Israel. What's your take
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 4: Well, it was a curtain raiser, wasn't like, not just
Speaker 4: in terms of the grotesque messaging and violence that we've
Speaker 4: seen in the months that followed, but the response from
Speaker 4: government at the state and federal level was what.
Speaker 5: Many would describe as totally lacking.
Speaker 4: There were no arrests, There was yes condemnation, but that
Speaker 4: condemnation has always counted in language quite merely on the
Speaker 4: tongue and this is where federal labor.
Speaker 5: In particular, I feel has repeatedly failed.
Speaker 4: For example, why doesn't every statement made by this government
Speaker 4: about Israel and Gaza just start with the words release
Speaker 4: the hostages, Like, surely that's not a position.
Speaker 5: They don't support.
Speaker 4: Those words make it into the press statements, but they're
Speaker 4: often buried under convoluted statements about restraint and ceasefires. But
Speaker 4: generally speaking, my feeling about October nine is.
Speaker 5: The leaders were probably.
Speaker 4: Experiencing a collective state of denial about what they themselves
Speaker 4: were witnessing, and they were probably unwilling to be sensible
Speaker 4: and call out what they were witnessing, or they were
Speaker 4: hoping it would go away, and that was naive.
Speaker 1: So after October nine here in Australia we've seen protests
Speaker 1: through city streets every weekend and university encampments inspired by
Speaker 1: the ones in America, and at those encampments and on
Speaker 1: the protests we've seen a couple of different types of people.
Speaker 1: There's people of Middle Eastern descent and then there's white
Speaker 1: Australians and they're chanting slogans like Israel is a terrorist state,
Speaker 1: accusing Israel murdering babies. So how do we interpret all
Speaker 1: of that from that group of people. Is that level
Speaker 1: of protest do you think anti Israel or is it
Speaker 1: anti Semitic? And what would be the difference in this context?
Speaker 1: I guess I'm asking, is there a way to disagree
Speaker 1: with the way Israel is conducting the war in Gaza
Speaker 1: from here in Australia and still be an ally to Jews?
Speaker 4: Well, to go to what you just mentioned, I would
Speaker 4: say it's certainly anti Israel, and many would rightfully argue
Speaker 4: that it's flagrantly anti Semitic, as I would as well.
Speaker 4: What fascinates me about these cac cries is that the
Speaker 4: people saying them seem to display a sort of willful
Speaker 4: disregard of Hamas's involvement in this tragedy altogether. So let's
Speaker 4: just clear away one thing first. Israelis themselves they're appalled
Speaker 4: by the civilian deaths in Gaza, as any sensible human
Speaker 4: being would.
Speaker 5: Be Bibi himself.
Speaker 4: The hardline is in the Israeli government, believe it or not,
Speaker 4: they don't want innocent people to die either, but they
Speaker 4: do see Hamas as culpable for those tragedies, and rightfully so.
Speaker 4: The Australian government seems to hold a slightly different view.
Speaker 4: But to the protesters in the streets, with their kafirs
Speaker 4: and the signs calling for Antifada and other slogans, I
Speaker 4: often wonder why they aren't acknowledging what brave Palestinians in
Speaker 4: Gaza are saying themselves, which is that Hamas wilfully endangered
Speaker 4: their lives by turning their homes into rocket launching sites,
Speaker 4: or that Hamas deliberately embedded itself in hospitals and schools,
Speaker 4: or in the aid camps where the population now seeks shelter,
Speaker 4: or that Hamas wasted billions in eight dollars on building tunnels,
Speaker 4: and to state the bleeding obvious that Hermas launched this
Speaker 4: war and are still holding more than one hundred hostages.
Speaker 4: The protesters always have to work very hard to justify
Speaker 4: that point, to justify that morally reprehensible starting point. But
Speaker 4: to answer your original question, there's a very simple way
Speaker 4: to disagree with the war, and that is say whatever
Speaker 4: you like about it, have a view, without punctuating your
Speaker 4: point or framing your argument by saying that Israel has
Speaker 4: no right to exist in the first place and has
Speaker 4: no right to defend itself.
Speaker 5: It's pretty simple.
Speaker 1: Coming up. How did anti Israel sentiment become fashionable for
Speaker 1: the progressive left? That's after the break. There are plenty
Speaker 1: of Australians you would never show up at a protest,
Speaker 1: but for many of them, Palestine has now moved from
Speaker 1: the fringe where it was once the pet subject of
Speaker 1: the labor left or the Greens for example, to being
Speaker 1: now a very fashionable cause. So these are people who
Speaker 1: you would normally think of as the progressive left, and
Speaker 1: I would think they would describe themselves like that, their
Speaker 1: pro gay rights, their pro reconciliation for example. So how
Speaker 1: have they ended up being anti Israel although Israel is
Speaker 1: really the only place in the Middle East where ideas
Speaker 1: that they believe in gay rights and women's rights are
Speaker 1: fully embraced.
Speaker 4: What I would say is that if you're in your
Speaker 4: twenties and political activism is a form of identity and expression,
Speaker 4: then you can't sit on the fence. There is an
Speaker 4: imperative to voice your moral outrage, and you have to
Speaker 4: choose wisely what side you'll take or risk excommunication from
Speaker 4: your group, and you have to participate in the rituals
Speaker 4: of that group, like posting to social media or sharing
Speaker 4: and liking, or attending a protest. So there's a lot
Speaker 4: of stake, and the incentives, which are always to be
Speaker 4: like to be accepted, are the same as they've always been.
Speaker 4: The incentive isn't to be historically literate, it's just to
Speaker 4: be aghast at something. And we've seen this before with
Speaker 4: Israel and Gaza. We're all partly surrendering ourselves to the
Speaker 4: distortion of our own social media algorithms, much as we
Speaker 4: did during debates over the vaccines and Trump and Black
Speaker 4: Lives Matter and Ukraine and Russia. What I would say
Speaker 4: is that it would seem to me that in this debate,
Speaker 4: all roads lead back to where our attention is being focused,
Speaker 4: the information we're being provided, and in large respect, social media.
Speaker 1: So here in Australia there are some very vocal Jewish
Speaker 1: people who say Israel doesn't represent me. I don't want
Speaker 1: to be included in this group who believes that even
Speaker 1: Israel has a right to exist. How do you think
Speaker 1: those sentiments, express very vocally by certain people here have
Speaker 1: influenced the bigger conversation.
Speaker 5: I'm not sure if they have.
Speaker 4: I know that there is a vocal minority that exists
Speaker 4: and who hold that view, But they are again a
Speaker 4: vocal minority, and they are part of a vanishingly small
Speaker 4: minority of the Jewish population in this country, which, for
Speaker 4: anyone wondering, is also tiny.
Speaker 5: It's about one hundred thousand strong nationally. I would say the.
Speaker 4: Overwhelming majority of Jews in this country are Zionus who
Speaker 4: believe in Jewish self determination and the right of Jews
Speaker 4: to live in their ancestral homeland. And I believe a
Speaker 4: bulk of them also live in hope of a country
Speaker 4: that's at peace with its Arab neighbors. And if you
Speaker 4: think that's not possible, just consider there is peace between
Speaker 4: Israel and Jordan, Israel and Egypt. These were countries with
Speaker 4: which Israel was once fiercely at war, but no longer.
Speaker 4: So it's not impossible, but it is impossible while genocidal
Speaker 4: Iranian proxy groups like Hamas and tresbolare running around destroying
Speaker 4: the joint and destroying the lives of their own populations.
Speaker 1: Joli Bishan is a senior tojournalist with The Australian. He's
Speaker 1: reported for US multiple times from the Middle East this year,
Speaker 1: and also writes our must read business column margin call.
Speaker 1: You can check out Yo on his work right now
Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au